Marblehead boys basketball falls victim to Danvers juggernaut

Friday

Mar 7, 2014 at 11:46 AMMar 7, 2014 at 12:42 PM

By Scot Coopermarblehead.sports@wickedlocal.com

After pounding Chelsea in a Division 2 North preliminary round game, the Marblehead High School boys basketball team was derailed in its hunt for a championship by two-time defending champs Danvers, 67-49 Feb. 26.Co-captain Matt Millett led the offense with 15 points, and his fellow co-captain Spencer Craig dropped in 10, matching a 10-point effort from Cian Saunders.For Millet, it was his last high school game. Craig and Saunders will be back, and Craig said this year’s seniors were outstanding."We got nice work from Alex (Conn), Matty (Millet), (Ryan) Himes, Peter Tully and Elliot Gregory. We had a good game to start the tournament, then we played Danvers tough. But they’re the defending state champs for a reason," Craig said.Marblehead did not bow down to the Falcons, however, despite trailing by double digits after one quarter. The Magicians came out hot in the second, went on an 18-13 run to cut the Falcons lead to six at halftime.The Falcons were able to settle down in the second half, and after the visitors trimmed it to 34-30 in the third the home team ran off six straight points to take a lead that they would never relinquish."We were proud of how we played in the last game. We fought very hard against Danvers, but they’re an outstanding team, and they’re going to make some noise moving forward in the tournament," Craig said. "We gave it all we had. We just came up short. We had a good season, and it was great to get back into the playoffs."Mike Giardi will have several players returning in his second year as a coach. Along with Craig and Saunders, juniors Will Millett, Angle Perez, Joe Howard and Griffin Butterfield will be back. Sophomores Ted Bostley, Michael Blaney and Beau Dana are also back."We’ve got a lot of guys coming back, and we’re losing a lot of great guys, but we’ll be ready for next year," Craig said.Craig is undecided right now whether or not he’ll be playing lacrosse in the spring, or just work on getting ready to quarterback the football team in the fall. But he has a few days to decide, before spring tryouts commence on March 17.